We had to cross an area of a couple of kilometers covered in sticky mud to reach Sepultura who was playing on Black Stage and that resulted in barely making it to the band. By the time the infield was in sight, the first notes of Troops of Doom could be heard. We started to run on mud so as not to miss this cult song and made it to the stage before the song was over. It was a shock to hear Troops of Doom as the opening song since I had not checked the band’s setlist before the concert. The band, then, played their classics one after another to make the of the limited time that they were allowed. As a physics experiment, we found out that Roots Bloody Roots could actually make you jump on mud.

Yes, in my opinion, a Sepultura without Max can never be the real Sepultura. Although Green is doing his best (and I respect him), I would really love to watch the band with Max. Who knows, maybe this will happen in the 30th anniversary of Wacken (please let this happen).

After Sepultura, we turned our heads right, to the True Metal Stage for Kvelertak, who turned out to be another highlight of the whole event. Now, it is futile to define or even classify their music. They play an entertaining (and happy?), blues-based rock/metal with shrieking and clean vocals, with Norwegian lyrics. Three guitarists mostly play the same parts, but with slightly different tones, giving sort of a sludge / stoner sound. Their stage appearance was nothing extraordinary, except the front man, who was quite drunk at such an early hour. He did all the rock star shenanigans, including stagediving – twice, stumbling and falling in the process. He could lose a few kilos, though, or consider wearing a shirt. Overall we ended up Kvelertak fans at the end of the show.

Then we turned our heads to the left again to the Black Stage for At the Gates.

We did not go to the front side of the stage to watch At the Gates. It sufficed to watch them from far since the band mostly meant Slaughter of the Soul to me. While Tompa has an energy way beyond his age, his vocals are not as good as they used to be. But still, the band played before their crazy fans and put up a good performance.

I had never watched Queensrÿche before and I was curious about their show. I don’t like all of their albums but I had to watch the show for the sake of Rage for Order and Operation Mindcrime. It was another point of curiosity for me to see how the band sounded without Geoff Tate. The band played a setlist heavily dominated by songs from Operation Mindcrime and was really good. They also played a new song (Arrow of Time) from their latest album Condition Hüman. The new singer Todd La Torre seems to fit the band quite well.

Jeff Waters… I could have summarized the review with these two words and been done with it. But then, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you how awesome the show and how fucked up the ground was. I watched Annihilator last year in Istanbul for the first time and it was a total blast. Back then Dave Padden was the singer. Now, Jeff Waters was both on guitars and vocals. This line-up seems to confirm the fact that Annihilator is Jeff Waters’s one-man-band. A man, who is a guitar machine, a good singer, an awesome frontman and an funny guy, deserves his own band anyway, right?

Annihilator kicked ass on the Party Stage as was expected of them and played great songs. It felt so good to listen to masterpieces such as W.T.Y.D., Allison Hell again. It was a surprise to watch Mike Mangini, drummer of Dream Theater who would be taking the neighbouring True Metal Stage soon, playing the drums on Set the World on Fire. The fantastic show ended with mighty Human Insecticide.

And the down sides? Firstly, it was a big disappointment that no songs from Criteria for a Black Widow, my personal favorite, was played. Secondly, the ground in front of the Party Stage was terrible. Yes, everywhere was very bad but Party Stage was the stage in the worst condition. Cannibal Corpse, too, had their share of this mess the next day. Some parts in front of the stage was impassable and I literally watched the show beside a lake of mud.

All in all, the show was so good. I would even watch Annihilator playing Britney Spears covers in a city dump.

After Queensrÿche, I left Volkan to see Anaal Nathrakh, out of curiosity. You don’t come across many British extreme metal bands, and for good reason. Anaal… play a straight-to-your-face death/grind, with occasional clean (operatic?) vocals. The front man likes giving social speeches between songs and then proceeds to growl about genitalia. The band even failed to stage their second guitarist, which added to their misery.

Thyrfing quickly made me forget about the disappointment. The Swedish black metal sextet was impressive both in stage appearance and performance; an unlikely bass-led, Viking inspired black metal with occasional keyboards and female vocals. The magic of Thyrfing was their ability to instantly pull the audience in the music. It was a huge wrench to leave early, but I had to meet Volkan at the rendezvous point and time, which was not optional.

I had watched Dream Theater once before in Istanbul. I am not a die-hard fan of the band, but I respect their musicianship and I have some personal favourite songs. Each member is like a music genius. But Portnoy leaving the band made me feel they way I did when Drogba left Galatasaray. While I was considering myself lucky tho have watched the band with Portnoy, I would love to see them with Mangini this time.

Mangini put up performance that is beyond human capabilities. And so did the other members. Petrucci was glorious with his cool attitude and killer solos. The band could not play many songs since their songs were long but time was short. Yet I can say that they made the most of their time. It was a clever choice to play only one song from each album – I learned this on setlist after the show. I could really use Pull Me Under but it is clear that all the bands have to sacrifice many songs on Wacken as long as they are not headliners.

Black Label Society was one of the bands we sacrificed for band clashes. But I can’t say that I’m sorry. We just watched a couple of songs from far and that was enough. I watched Zakk Wylde in Metal All-star show in Istanbul and it was a jaw-dropping performance. One wishes that such an incredible talent would make better music. I respect Zakk Wylde to a great extent but BLS plays really dull music and – sorry but – it sounds like crap (let the lynch begin). The sludge southern riffs and sleepy vocal partitions despite Zakk’s unique voice are the main points keeping me at a distance with the band. On top of this, when I remembered the wanna-be biker guys with BLS patches on their leather kuttes we ran way to watch Samael.

We skipped Black Label Society in order to refuel and reach Samael, who played to a full tent, in time. Now I cannot be objective when it comes to Samael, one of my all-time favourites. Ever since the first beats of “Rain” struck me back in 1996, I have been a fervent fan of the black metal – turned industrial Swiss band. The band also caused a lot of well-known controversy, as Xytras gave up his drum kit in favour of the keyboard and drum programming and as the band ventured ever deep in experiments, new sounds, concepts and as such evolved itself from a crude slow tempo black metal to an avant-garde, electronic metal music. They evidently are aware of the disgruntled fans’ criticism and have been in a “return to the roots” phase for some time. The first sign was 2009’s “Above” (however the band had never played at such fast tempo). And this year they have been touring to play the cult “Ceremony of Opposites”, the 1994 album formed on themes which the band long departed, in its entirety. This was my second live Samael experience and it blew my mind, once again. Their stage performance is beyond compare and something one cannot be prepared for. They played the album out in their signature militaristic precision, and even threw away a new song for good measure, thus ending the hour-long trance. After Samael, pretty worn out we headed back to the VIP tent to rest our poor legs. We returned to the W:E:T Stage to watch Nuclear Assault.

Nuclear Assault was one of the bands that stirred me in W:O:A 2015. We took our places in the tent right away since it was a band that I had long wanted to watch. They stormed the tent the eighties way and and played their killer classics. New Song, Sin, Hang the Pope pushed our neck muscles to their limits although it may not be worth mentioning considering the band’s performance who were almost in their fifties. The setlist was not published on the web but I took some notes:

After Nuclear Assault Again we returned to the VIP tent, also caught a glimpse of Running Wild from distance.

I watched Runnig Wild in W:O:A 2009, in the last show of their career. At least so was their claim back then. The band was given two hours for this special occasion and the band rocked the stage with songs from all their career. It was really a blast and it was additionally fantastic to witness that historic show.

However, the band reunited two years later and released the avaerage Resilient. And they took the stage again at Wacken in 2015. Despite RW being one of may all-time favourite bands, this come-back fail made me lose interest a little bit. Anyway, it gave me goosebumps to watch cult songs such as Under Jolly Roger and Riding the Storm. We finished Under Riding the Storm, my personal fave, and headed out to wactch My Dying Bride whom I had never watched before.

My Dying Bride was the perfect, although painful, end to the long day. It was to be my first live MDB experience and I was very curious. I wasn’t disappointed. They went head on with “Your River” and kept on inflicting pain and sorrow and suffering and loss and… Aaron rarely spoke to the audience but wallowed in sadness and regret. But after a while one wonders, how much of this is genuine and when does it become a commercial gimmick.